Farmers have increasingly sown a single type of grass in their fields over the past 100 years, and then added chemical fertiliser to increase their harvest. But new research suggests that there are alternatives that are cheaper and can increase the potential of these grasslands to feed livestock.

My research team and I were particularly interested in the potential of mixing up the species of plants grown in agricultural grasslands and what the benefits might be.

This meant the sowing of two grasses, two legumes (for instance, red clover and white clover) and two herbs (such as plantain and chicory) together in a field. These groups of species can play different roles in a grassland. For example, legumes can extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, and herbs can have deep roots.

We wanted to find out if mixing plants that differ in their ecological traits can provide a nature-based and sustainable solution to reducing chemical fertiliser use.